His Real Life

By Philip Lear

It’s late afternoon and Tom is sitting in the living room working on the crossword puzzle. He likes doing the puzzles because they’re a great escape. They take his mind off of everything. 

The phone rings. It’s Steve, his son. Steve is working as an assistant manager at a large marketing firm in town. Though he can’t put his finger on it, Tom finds him annoying and feels guilty. Steve’s never done anything to him.  In fact Steve’s a very decent guy. But Tom can’t help himself.

Steve tells him that he just received notice from his boss that his job is being eliminated.

"I never expected this," Steve says.

"Well, you'll find another job." Tom says. He doesn’t want to hear about it.

            "The job market is so bad and there’s the mortgage, the car payments, the daycare." Steve says. 

"Don't worry.  Something will turn up."

Tom remembers getting canned unexpectedly. One time he had thirty minutes to clean out his desk. And then the Human Resource Manager and a security guard accompanied him out the side door. He had received a good performance evaluation and a raise only a few months before and couldn’t figure out what had happened. But after a while he realized that terminations, downsizings layoffs, and other euphemisms for being canned, when they happened were frequently unexpected.

When he’d lose a job, he’d be upset for a few days.  Then he’d dust off his resume and go around to all those seedy midtown employment agencies looking for work. He knew exactly what Steve was going through. Yet somehow he didn’t feel anything. And he resented being disturbed when he was working on his puzzle. 

He hangs up and he goes back to doing the puzzle. But now it seems more difficult. He’s lost his rhythm. He's working on 31 down.  It's a six-letter word for flower. He's getting frustrated and is about to put the puzzle down when he thinks of it, Orchid.  That's it! He's excited as he writes orchid in the 31 down. Now he’s working on 32 down. It's a seven-letter word for old friends beginning with "R". This one's easy.  It's reunion. He writes it in, but then, when he goes to do 42 across nothing seems to match and he’s more frustrated than ever.

Karen walks in the door.  She drops her keys on the table. "Did I have a rough day today."

Tom doesn't answer. Every day is a rough day for Karen.  She's a high school English teacher with thirty rowdy kids bouncing off the walls.

"Today I had two kids fighting in my class.  I couldn't stop them.  They must have been on steroids because they were really huge.  I called the office for help but no one came.  And when I tried to break it up I got punched.”

She shows him a bruise on her right shoulder.

He feels nothing.  It's been like this with her for a long time.  If he starts listening and responding she’ll go on for hours. And Tom really doesn't want to listen.

"What do you feel like for dinner," he asks.

"Dinner!  How can I even think about dinner when I've just been mugged?”

"I'll order some Chinese take-out.  Spare ribs and vegetable low mien. How about a drink?"

"Is that all you can say?  I get punched out and all you can talk about is ordering dinner," she says.

"Steve called before," Tom continues.  "He just lost his job."

"Oh, the poor kid," she says.  "I'll have to call him."

“He’ll find another one,” Tom says.

He dials the restaurant. "This is Rossi at 103 East Main St. apartment 10 D. I'd like to order spare ribs and a small vegetable lo mien. 

Karen puts up some water to boil. "It was just awful.  In my free period I went into the teachers room and cried the whole time. I can't stand it anymore."

"Why don't you try something else?  If you worked in an office you wouldn't have to put up with this stuff. Though you would certainly have to put up with other things. There’s no shortage of bosses and coworkers who make our lives miserable."

"But I only have a few years to go for my pension and the lifetime health benefits.  And I do get my summers off, " she says.

“It’s worth taking a few punches for benefits like that,” he says.

The food arrives and they eat in silence. That’s how it is on most nights. Either she’s mad at him or he’s mad at her or they’re both mad at the world. And it doesn’t have to be over something that just happened. It could be about something that happened twenty years ago. 

After dinner Karen calls her friend, Barb. She’s a teacher in the neighboring town and they commiserate. They both have similar situations and they speak almost every night after dinner.

Tom goes into the den and turns on the TV.  It's November and there’s a Monday night football game on.  The Jets are playing the Giants.  It’s the first period and the game is scoreless. The teams are banging heads at midfield. Neither one is making any headway. 

The scene goes to commercial.  It's a Thanksgiving scene. A sleigh pulls up in front of a beautiful log cabin on top of a snowy mountain.  There’s a tall, tanned, slender gray haired woman wearing a long woven Indian dress standing on her front porch welcoming the family in the sleigh. It’s easy to see how loving she is.  She comes down to greet them. The grand kids get out and run up to her. She reaches down and hugs them. What a beautiful family scene, Tom thinks. He longs to be a part of it.